


Guardian of Kirkwall

by Kit



Series: space and espionage; trenches, Victoriana and magical girls: genre and period AUs [3]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Highschool AU, Isabela makes an excellent rival basketball team captain, evil fennecs, magical girl au, sneaky shoujo tropes, toast included
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 15:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5010019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit/pseuds/Kit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another day, another criminal tied up outside the Viscount's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guardian of Kirkwall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maybethings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/gifts).



The street was dark. The stranger’s step was heavy.

Athenril laughed into her sleeve.She was looking at a peculiar object. All scowl and tall boots, flowers glittering at her ears in the half light. The smuggler’s eyes flicked from her work back to that scowl, before returning to the lyrium once again. Barrels of the stuff, out too long and pretty with it. It was starting to sing, even to her ears.

She nodded to her guard. Best deal with this. Fast.

“This isn’t a costume party, red,” Athenril said.

The stranger smiled, both eyebrows raised.

“Isn’t it?”

She stepped forward, and Athenril took in the long, bronze staff in her left hand. “But you’re dressed like someone who matters.”

* * *

**THE KIRKWALL CHANT, MORNING EDITION:**

> _“Another day, another criminal tied up outside the Viscount’s.”_
> 
> _“That’s right, Brennan. There’s been a lot of Coterie activity this week. It really does make you wonder—”_
> 
> _“—Why Kirkwall is always overrun by every type of nefarious—_
> 
> _“—No, silly. Just_ **who** _is the guardian of our streets? The savior in our shadows. Who, Brennan, is our hero?”_

* * *

“Aveline? Aveline!”

“Uuugh.”

“You’ll be late for school!”

 _Again_? “…oh, Maker.”

There were always more stairs in the morning. She ran down them as close to three at a time as her legs allowed, wincing as her father laughed at her from his seat at the kitchen table.

“What happened to my morning person?”

Aveline scowled, grabbing a piece of toast. “She moved districts. She had exams. She—

“—is the best daughter anyone could want.” Benoit du Lac smiled as Aveline dashed past, catching up her hand and squeezing, gently, kissing the back.

“Love you, too, dad.”

She was smiling when she slammed the door.

* * *

She stopped smiling when the fennec found her. It twined about her legs, chittering softly and looking up at her with limpid eyes. Aveline winced, and kept running.

“Stop,” Aveline said, dodging the small creature. “Stop that  _right_ now. I—”

“ _You_ ,” the fennec said, “Have work to do.”

“Yes, I have work to do!” Ten minutes to go, if she was lucky, Lowtown shifting into High by the strain in her calves, the rush of growing buildings. “I need—”

“— _You_ ,” said the fennec, gleeful, “Signed my contract. A day’s life for a night’s fight. How was your father this morning? He sounded nice and—”

“I am going to wring your tiny neck.”

“Can’t.” Smug tones. A tickle of fur and a prick of tiny claws as it raced up her leg and arm to her shoulder. “Magic.”

“ _How_  magic?”

“You don’t want to find—watch out, stupid!”

There was a boy standing in the middle of the road.

Aveline crashed right into him.

It was that sort of morning.

* * *

“I’m sorry. I am  _so_ —”

The boy groaned.

Aveline sighed. It was all she could do, in this position. The boy was underneath her, big brown eyes wide and fixed on her face. He was warm. Why did he have a _temperature?_  And weight. And nice eyes? And bones? Lots and lots and lots of—

“Aveline?”

“…Donnic?”

“That’s me,” the boy said. “And this is…you. Hello, you.”

This was the worst day of her life and it wasn’t even nine yet.

Donnic Hendyr was smiling.  _How could he be smiling?_ Shouldn’t he be dead? Aveline _wanted_ to be dead. Of embarrassment.

“Um. Hello. It’s…morning. It’s definitely morning.” She managed to get to her feet, brushing the dirt and possibly bits of Donnic ( _was it possible to die from blushing?)_ off her ubiform. Should she hold out her arm for him? Was that forward? It seemed polite, but would he be offended? It would be—

Strong fingers gripped her arm. Donnic smiled and stood.

The fennec bit her on the ankle.

“Sorry I fell all over you,” Aveline mumbled.

“Oh, no. I like it when you’re all over me. I mean—” Donnic swallowed. “You can do it any time you…um…no problem.”

* * *

 Algebra. Music. English and the Chant. Nearly a whole day gone.

Then basketball.

Isabela waited for her a smirk, hair pulled back under a bandana and one of the new transfer students looking at her longingly from the sidelines. When she saw Aveline, she cracked her knuckles. It was louder than her laugh.

“I’m ready,  _Captain_.”

“Same to you.”

Looking at Isabela always felt good. Not for the same reason everyone else thought, no matter  _how_  tiny her skirt or wicked her smile, but because the world narrowed to two things. The ball. And beating the other Captain to it.

Isabela rolled her shoulders.

“Think you can beat me, big girl?”

“Try me.”

That was the best thing about Isabela. She always did.

The whistle blew.

By the time the game was won, Aveline had sweat in her eyes and a sore jaw and she didn’t even care that the fennec was still watching her with bright eyes from a perch on top of the score card.

At least, until the lights out.

* * *

Jevan had a grip on Donnic’s nape and smashed him, hard as he could, against the locker wall. The power cut wouldn’t last long. Too many cameras in the halls. Donnic struggled and kicked. Even spat. Little shit.

“You’re meant to  _pay me_.”

“No,” Donnic said. “You—expect it. Not…” a wheeze. “Not the same thing.”

“Are you being clever?” Jevan twisted the grip at his neck, grinning as the smaller boy choked. “Don’t be clever. Be  _smart_ , Hendyr. Give a little. Give a lot.”

* * *

 “Are you coming?” the fennic said, voice more in Aveline’s head than it wasn’t as she pushed through dark corridors, the school’s panic a heavy, vibrating mess in her ears. “You’d better be coming.”

Aveline didn’t bother with an answer. There were shouts up ahead. Raw and ugly and full of breaking voices.

“You’ll have to change, of course,” said the fennec. “Go on. Do it now.”

“I can stop a few bullies  _without_ —”

“—contract!” it chirped. “Plus, it’s fun!”

“For _you_ ,” Aveline muttered, coughing. “But fine.” She reached up, still running, and touched one of the small copper earrings she wore. A marigold.

She bit her lip, then nodded. “Kirkwall,” she said, voice doing the trick of growing louder, somehow, the longer it was outside her body. “ _ **DON’T** ” _

The metal of her earring was slick under her fingers. Slick, then soft, as light bloomed out and the air was thick, for just a minute, with growing things and blood.

And glitter.

There was always glitter. Bronze and red and orange and gold, dusting her arms, her shoulders. Her face around its mask. Her footprints, now shaped to boots.

“ _That’s_ better,” the fennec said.

Aveline scowled.

But a Guardian still stepped through the last door. A Guardian still reached down, picked Jeven up by the back of his shirt, and threw him out the window.

And a Guardian could smile, brilliant and easy, as she leant down and offered Donnic Hendyr her arm.

Glitter, marigolds, and all.

_fin_


End file.
